True Romance
| writer = Quentin Tarantino | starring = | music = Hans Zimmer | cinematography = Jeffrey L. Kimball | editing = | studio = | distributor = Warner Bros. | released = | runtime = 118 minutes | country = United States | language = English | budget = $12.5 million | gross = $12.3 million }} True Romance is a 1993 American romantic crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. The film stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast including James Gandolfini, Dennis Hopper, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Walken. The plot follows an ex-call girl (Arquette) and her husband (Slater) on the run from the Mafia after stealing a shipment of drugs from her former pimp. Beginning life as an early script by Tarantino, the film was the first of his films to be released following the smash success of Reservoir Dogs, and was the first screenplay by the filmmaker to not be directed by him. The film is regarded by proponents as a cross-section of writer Tarantino and director Scott's respective individual trademarks; including a Southern California setting, pop cultural references, and stylized violence punctuated by use of slow motion. Upon initial release, the film received highly positive critical reviews, with critics praising its dialogue, characters, and off-beat style. Though initially a box-office failure, its positive reception earned it a cult following, and it is today considered one of Scott's best films, and one of the best American films of the 1990s. Plot At a Detroit theater showing kung fu films, Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) strikes up a conversation with Elvis Presley fanatic Clarence Worley (Christian Slater). After the triple feature show, Alabama invites Clarence for pie. They converse at a diner, where he asks her multiple questions, one of which is, "Do you have a fella?" Later that night, they have sex at Clarence's apartment in downtown Detroit. Clarence awakes to find Alabama huddled in blankets, crying on the ledge of a large billboard ad outside of his window. She tearfully confesses that she is a call girl hired by Clarence's boss as a birthday present but has fallen in love with Clarence. He takes it in stride and they marry the next day. An apparition of Elvis (Val Kilmer) visits Clarence and convinces him to kill Alabama's pimp Drexl (Gary Oldman). Clarence goes to the brothel where Alabama worked, shoots and kills Drexl, along with Drexl's sidekick, Marty, and takes a bag he assumes contains Alabama's belongings. Back at the apartment, he and Alabama discover the bag contains a large amount of cocaine. The couple visit Clarence's estranged father, Clifford (Dennis Hopper), a former cop and now a security guard, for help. After checking around with some old cop friends, Clifford tells Clarence that the police assume Drexl's murder is a gang killing. After the couple leave for Los Angeles, Clifford is interrogated by Don Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken). consigliere to a mobster named "Blue Lou Boyle", the mobster whom Drexl had been doing business with and who is now after the cocaine. Clifford, realizing he will die anyway, mockingly defies Coccotti. Infuriated, Coccotti shoots Clifford dead. A note on the refrigerator leads the mobsters to Clarence's Los Angeles address. In Los Angeles, Clarence and Alabama meet Clarence's friend Dick (Michael Rapaport), an aspiring actor, and his roommate, Floyd (Brad Pitt). Dick introduces Clarence to a friend of his, actor Elliot Blitzer (Bronson Pinchot), who reluctantly agrees to broker the sale of the drugs to film producer Lee Donowitz. While Clarence is out buying lunch, Coccotti's underboss, Virgil (James Gandolfini), finds Alabama in her motel room and beats her for information. She fights back and kills him with his shotgun. Elliot is pulled over for speeding and arrested for drug possession. To stay out of jail, he agrees to record the drug deal between Clarence and Donowitz for the police. Coccotti's crew learn where the deal will take place from Dick's roommate Floyd. Clarence, Alabama, Dick, and Elliot go to Donowitz's suite at the Ambassador Hotel with the drugs. In the elevator, a suspicious Clarence threatens Elliot at gunpoint, but is persuaded by Elliot's pleading. Once in the hotel room, Clarence fabricates a story for Donowitz that the drugs were given to him by a corrupt cop, and Donowitz agrees to the sale. Clarence excuses himself to the bathroom, where a vision of Elvis reassures him that things are going well. Donowitz and his bodyguards are ambushed by the cops and mobsters and a shootout begins after Elliot accidentally reveals himself as an informant. Dick abandons the drugs and flees. Almost everyone is killed in the gun battle, and Clarence is wounded as he exits the bathroom. He and Alabama escape with Donowitz's money as more police arrive. They flee to Mexico where Alabama gives birth to a son, whom she names Elvis. Cast Production The title and plot are a play on the titles of romance comic books such as True Life Secrets, True Stories of Romance, Romance Tales, Untamed Love and Strange Love. The film was a breakthrough for Tarantino. Released after Reservoir Dogs, it was his first screenplay for a major motion picture, and Tarantino contends that it is his most autobiographical film to date. He had hoped to also direct the film, but lost interest in directing and sold the script. According to Tarantino's audio commentary on the DVD release, he was happy with the way it turned out. Apart from changing the nonlinear narrative he wrote to a more conventional linear structure, it was largely faithful to his original screenplay. He initially opposed director Tony Scott's decision to change the ending (which Scott maintained was of his own volition, not the studio's, saying "I just fell in love with these two characters and didn’t want to see them die"). When seeing the completed film, he realized Scott's happy ending was more appropriate to the film as Scott directed it. The film's first act, as well as some fragments of dialogue, were repurposed from Tarantino's 1987 amateur film My Best Friend's Birthday. The film's score by Hans Zimmer is a theme based on Gassenhauer from Carl Orff's Schulwerk. This theme, combined with a voiceover spoken by Arquette, is an homage to Terrence Malick's 1973 crime film Badlands, in which Sissy Spacek speaks the voiceover, and that also shares similar dramatic motifs. Reception Critical reception Reviews for the film were largely positive. It holds a "Certified Fresh" score of 92% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 7.54/10, based on 53 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Fueled by Quentin Tarantino's savvy screenplay and a gallery of oddball performances, Tony Scott's True Romance is a funny and violent action jaunt in the best sense". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale. Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star called it "one of the most dynamic action films of the 1990s". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it three stars, saying "it's Tarantino's gutter poetry that detonates True Romance. This movie is dynamite." Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review remarking that "the energy and style of the movie are exhilarating", and that "the supporting cast is superb, a roll call of actors at home in these violent waters: Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, and Brad Pitt, for example". A negative review by The Washington Post s Richard Harrington claimed the film was "stylistically visceral" yet "aesthetically corrupt". Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "True Romance, a vibrant, grisly, gleefully amoral road movie directed by Tony Scott and dominated by the machismo of Quentin Tarantino (who wrote this screenplay before he directed Reservoir Dogs), is sure to offend a good-sized segment of the moviegoing population". Box office performance Although a critical success, True Romance was a box office failure. It was given a domestic release and earned $12.3 million on a $12.5 million budget. Despite this, the film developed a cult following over the years. Legacy Empire ranked True Romance the 83rd greatest film of all time in 2017, writing: "Tony Scott's handling of Quentin Tarantino's script came off like the cinematic equivalent of cocaine-flavoured bubble-gum: a bright, flavoursome confection that had an intoxicatingly violent kick. It also drew some tremendous big names to its supporting cast." The Hopper/Walken scene, colloquially named "The Sicilian scene", was praised by Oliver Lyttelton of IndieWire, who called it "one of the most beautiful tête-à-têtes in contemporary cinema, wonderfully written and made utterly iconic by the two virtuoso actors".Lyttelton, Oliver. The 10 Best Dennis Hopper Performances, On What Would Have Been His 76th Birthday. IndieWire. May 17, 2012. Retrieved December 5, 2012. Tarantino himself has named it as one of his proudest moments. "I had heard that whole speech about the Sicilians a long time ago, from a black guy living in my house. One day I was talking with a friend who was Sicilian and I just started telling that speech. And I thought: 'Wow, that is a great scene, I gotta remember that'."True Romance Unrated Director's Cut DVD commentary Oldman's villain also garnered acclaim. MSN Movies wrote: "With just a few minutes of screen time, Gary Oldman crafts one of cinema's most memorable villains: the brutal, dreadlocked pimp Drexl Spivey. Even in a movie jammed with memorable cameos from screen luminaries ... Oldman's scar-faced, dead-eyed, lethal gangster stood out."True Romance (1993) - Drexl Spivey. MSN Movies. 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2012. Jason Serafino of Complex named Spivey as one of the top five coolest drug dealers in movie history, writing: "He's not in the film for a long time, but the few scant moments that Gary Oldman plays the psychotic dealer Drexl Spivey make True Romance a classic ... Oldman gave us a glimpse at one of cinema's most unfiltered sociopaths."Serafino, Jason. The 25 Coolest Drug Dealers In Movies. Complex. October 24, 2012. Retrieved December 21, 2012. Maxim journalist Thomas Freeman ranked Spivey as the greatest performance of Oldman's career. "Robbers", a song by the English indie rock band The 1975 from their 2013 debut album, was inspired by the film. Vocalist Matthew Healy explained: "I got really obsessed with the idea behind Patricia Arquette's character in True Romance when I was about eighteen. That craving for the bad boy in that film is so sexualized." Brad Pitt's stoner character in True Romance, Floyd, was the inspiration for making the film Pineapple Express, according to producer Judd Apatow, who "thought it would be funny to make a movie in which you follow that character out of his apartment and watch him get chased by bad guys". Soundtrack }} The soundtrack consists of a wide variety of music, ranging from rock to dance music. The album listing is as follows: Home media True Romance was released on VHS and DVD on September 24, 2002 as a Two-Disc set. It was later released on Blu-ray. See also * Cinema of the United States * List of American films of 1993 References External links * * * Category:1993 films Category:1990s black comedy films Category:1990s crime thriller films Category:1990s thriller films Category:1990s road movies Category:American road movies Category:American black comedy films Category:American crime thriller films Category:Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley Category:Films about drugs Category:Films directed by Tony Scott Category:Films scored by Hans Zimmer Category:Films set in Los Angeles Category:Films set in Detroit Category:Films shot in Los Angeles Category:Films shot in Michigan Category:English-language films Category:Italian-language films Category:Mafia films Category:Morgan Creek Productions films Category:1990s romantic thriller films Category:Screenplays by Quentin Tarantino Category:Screenplays by Roger Avary